1. BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES TO REVIEW ALS
(Contact: NVSmith@lbl.gov)

A review committee from the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences (DOE BES) will wind up its series of reviews of the four DOE synchrotron light sources by visiting the ALS on February 4-6, 2002. According to review committee chair Pedro Montano (DOE BES Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering), this is an important review that will "have teeth." A list of questions posed to the ALS by the review committee involves issues such as beamtime allocation, alternatives to participating research team (PRT) models, cost effectiveness, and future trends, plans, and potential problems. The agenda also includes updates on the current status of the ALS, scientific highlights, descriptions of industrial programs, overviews of future directions, and lunches with representatives of ALS advisory groups (UEC, SAC, PRTs). The highlight sessions will be open and will take place Monday and Tuesday, February 4-5, in Rm. 6-2202.

2. REMINDER: COMPENDIUM ABSTRACTS DUE JANUARY 28
(Contact: LSTamura@lbl.gov)

The deadline for submitting Compendium abstracts is next Monday, January 28, 2002. All users or user groups (including ALS staff members) should submit a one- to three-page abstract (including figures) describing each project conducted at the ALS during calendar year 2001, whether published, unpublished, or in progress. Submission information (including author guidelines, file specifications, and a submission form) can be found on the Web at http://alspubs.lbl.gov/Compendium_old. If you encounter problems uploading files via the Web, please don't hesitate to notify Lori Tamura as soon as possible (LSTamura@lbl.gov, 510-486-6172).

3. TIGHTER ACCESS PROCEDURES TO CONTINUE INDEFINITELY
(Contact: alsuser@lbl.gov)

According to Berkeley Lab Director Charles Shank, the DOE has determined that the national laboratories will operate at a somewhat heightened security status for the foreseeable future. For ALS users, this means being diligent about planning ahead and following registration procedures (see http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/registration.html). This will ensure that your name(s) will be added to the access list for the main (Blackberry Canyon) gate, where you should be prepared to show a photo ID upon arrival. Shuttle bus riders will be asked to show ID (e.g., Lab proximity card, Berkeley student ID, DOE badge) or demonstrate a business need to enter the Lab (e.g., a letter from the ALS, a badged employee as escort). Visitors arriving at the site who are not cleared by any of the above methods will remain in the gate area while the visitor's host is called. If the host cannot be reached, the Security Officer will then offer an escort to the visitor's destination. Further information about security procedures at Berkeley Lab can be found at http://www.lbl.gov/ehs/securityupdate/. If you have any questions about what to do, please contact the User Services Office at alsuser@lbl.gov or 510-486-7745.

4. UEC CORNER: NOTES FROM THE USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
by Roger Falcone
(Contact: rwf@physics.berkeley.edu)

As the new Chair of the Users' Executive Committee, I want to extend an invitation to all users to contact the members of the UEC with concerns or questions regarding the ALS Users' Group. I look forward to coordinating the efforts of the UEC in support of science at our facility.

As you may know, the UEC represents the over one thousand users of the ALS in a variety of venues, including discussions with ALS, Berkeley Lab, and DOE leadership.

The current membership of the UEC is as follows:

Harald Ade (North Carolina State University, harald_ade@ncsu.edu, 2000-02, Past Chair)
John Bozek (Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab, jdbozek@lbl.gov, 2002-04)
Jennifer Doudna (Yale University, doudna@csb.yale.edu, 2001-03)
Roger Falcone (University of California, Berkeley, rwf@physics.berkeley.edu, 1999-03, Chair)
Carolyn Larabell (Life Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab, calarabell@lbl.gov, 2000-02)
Dennis Lindle (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, lindle@nevada.edu, 2001-03)
Gerry McDermott (Physical Biosciences Division, Berkeley Lab, gmcdermott@lbl.gov, 2001-03)
Alexander Moewes (University of Saskatchewan, moewes@usask.ca, 2002-04)
Yasuji Muramatsu (Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, murama@spring8.or.jp, 2002-04)
Cheuk-Yiu Ng (University of California, Davis, cyng@lbl.gov, 2000-02)
Eli Rotenberg (Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab, erotenberg@lbl.gov, 2002-04)
Sophie Canton (Western Michigan University, secanton@lbl.gov, 2002-04, Student Member)

I would like to thank outgoing Chair Harald Ade for his excellent leadership and successful efforts during 2001, both in Berkeley and with our sponsors in Washington. I'm very pleased that he will be continuing on the UEC.

To briefly introduce myself to you, I am on the Berkeley Physics faculty, and have done experiments at the ALS for about five years. For my research, I am interested in the dynamics of condensed-matter systems illuminated by intense, ultrashort-pulse lasers. I am part of a team developing time-resolved x-ray scattering techniques, at both the ALS and other synchrotron facilities.

Please contact me with your ideas for the ALS.

5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.3
Heino Nitsche (Forschungszentrum Rossendorf, Germany)
Felicia Betancourt (Berkeley Lab)
Ted Raab (Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)

Beamlines 5.0.1, 5.0.2, and 5.0.3
Sridhar Prasad, Yanming Zhang (Syrrx, Inc.)
Rashid Syed, Vivian Li (Amgen, Inc.)
Kunchithapadam Swaminathan (National Univ. of Singapore)
Stephanie Snyder, Luke Sherlin, Yihong Zhang (Univ. of California, San Francisco)
Tongpil Min, Ha Jeung Park, Bu Hyun Youn, Jackie Hilsenbeck (Washington State Univ.)

Beamline 7.0.1
Marjorie Olmstead (Univ. of Washington)

Beamline 7.3.1.1
Bruce Terris, Simone Anders (IBM Almaden Research Center)

Beamline 8.0.1
Yasuji Muramatsu (Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute)
Tomoyuki Yamamoto (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Japan)

Beamline 8.3.1
Seth Harris, Sabine Borgraeber, Mary Budny, Dan Minor, Hu Pan (Univ. of California, San Francisco)

Beamline 10.0.1
Ward Plummer (Univ. of Tennessee)
Nora Berrah (Western Michigan Univ.)
Dan Dessau (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder)

Beamline 10.3.2
Tatiana Kirpichtchikova (Univ. Joseph Fourier, France)
Richard Reeder (State Univ. of New York at Stony Brook)

6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)

For the user runs of December 12 - 17, 18 - 23, January 4 - 7, 8 - 13, and 14 - 20, the beam reliability (time delivered/time scheduled) was 98%. Of the scheduled beam, 86% was delivered to completion without interruption. There were no significant outages.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.

LBNL/PUB-863
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.